Ye Olde Inn

So, what's with the mysterious inscriptions in room A ? ( West wall: VXU , South wall: VJSII , East wall: UPI ) Some code perhaps?
What about the chiseled inscription found in the south corridor:
. . . . .PORT . PUX
STARBOARD . MEVIS

you probably have to have read the novel to understand this.

It's either a Red Herring, or something the quest designer forgot to develop further. There's no mention of the code in the rest of the book.

Wow, I'm ogre!

drathe wrote:It's either a Red Herring, or something the quest designer forgot to develop further. There's no mention of the code in the rest of the book.

Thanks for the clarification. If it's a Red Herring, the author is cruelly narcissistic to publish it for so many young readers to dwell on. After all, if a red herring is included, then another correct option should be present to justify it. If the author instead forgot to develop it further, well then he was at the least unprofessional. Don't throw in a role-playing puzzle and then not bother to finish it! Nobody I've read has done that with their Quest notes.

Unfortunately, I made a real attempt to solve it with my amateurish code-breaking skills. That amounts to a Wikipedia search for port (lar) and starboard (steorboard), thinking they might provide the key... goose-eggs. Left and Right certainly don't fit, and that would have been more in line with the younger audience. I also tried a general substitution of all alphabet letters for the 3-letter 'coded' words, and then the 5-letter 'coded' word if the first two looked at all possible. Goose-eggs again.

Would have been cool if 20 minutes or less of code breaking would have provided useful Quest information, such as S door Galimatius. Sadly, this book deserves obscurity.

You guys should like this

http://the-lost-and-the-damned.664610.n ... 78653.html

Simple once it's spelled out for you. I'd like to take my group through this quest once they're finished their current pack.

Thanks for posting your find!

@Nephew of Mentor-

Thanks a heap for that link to the explanation of the code. I'm still of the opinion that it was too tough for the projected audience (non-code breakers). It seems simple, but guessing the key subtitution words was a leap beyond everybody that was reported on. At least Dave Morris provided the answer to the fans in the end.

If I ever play this, I'll throw in an extra clue--maybe as the key words on a piece of paper, written as a numbered list. To make it even easier, add the comment "The answer is simple...", but the paper is torn. It could be placed with either of the Chaos Warriors, or as two torn pieces, one clue on each Chaos Warrior.

Dave Morris wrote:Not that it's going to kill anybody if they didn't crack the code--it's just there for flavor, and the Cabiri didn't design their underworld to be fair, after all!

The second part of this statement is obvious enough, but I disagree with the first part about not killing anybody. A lone Wizard is only as powerful as his arsenal of spells. As the first room has 3 choices, there is only a 1 in 3 chance that 1 to 6 monsters ( ) and maybe a trap won't be encountered before the left or right choice of the code is possible. That means the Wizard is probably weakened. If he locates the secret door (easy to do, there's even an inscription nearby to mark it), then there's a 50/50 chance he's going to run into the Gargoyle with perhaps half his spells. If the Wizard attacks, he's probably a goner. I think that killed quite a few sans-artifacts, offensive Wizards who didn't crack the code and take things in the optimal order. Hell, even if he did go the right way first, it's a tough march to the artifact. I think the Wizard should definitely have some goodies before he undertakes this Quest.

Wow!

I actually put in some time to "solve" this. Extracted roman numerals, added them, subtracted them, counted traps, doors, monsters, rooms...

I know the answer
Of course, only now I noticed it's in Nephew of Mentor's link.
Thought I'd come up with news here.